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A couple of days ago I StumbledUpon an article by Richard Florida that explains why creative, independent thinkers leave cities like Pittsburgh.

Florida, a professor at the University of Toronto, talks about a chat he had with a “young man with spiked multi-colored hair, full-body tattoos, and multiple piercings in his ears” on the campus of Carnegie Mellon. Instead of being the “obvious slacker” that Florida took him for, this student had just signed the highest-paying job of any graduating student in the history of his department.

And guess what? The job wasn’t in Pittsburgh.

His recruiters flew in from Austin, TX, wore T-shirts around campus, and inked the deal on the grass in front of an academic building.

According to Florida, certain cities are much more attractive to these types of independent, creative, “rock-star” employees. San Francisco and Austin top the list of large creative cities, while Memphis and Norfolk VA round out the bottom.